Paradigm Sub 1 and Sub 2 - Page 9

has anyone else purchased a Sub1? If so any thoughts on it?

Latest from Anthem on Sub 2 from my dealer

"I just got off the horn with Paradigm regarding the availability of the
Sub 2, and they are currently estimating Mid July.

I asked if it made any difference what finish we wanted, and Paul said
"no" so apparently the delay has nothing to do with getting the cabinets."

Bummer.....

Is the SUB 2 still in development, or are they waiting for parts so they can produce them? I think some people here ordered theirs before Christmas, so is it first come first served? Does the mid-July ship date apply only if you ordered one today? What about people who ordered a long time ago? Will they get theirs in July too?

My dealer said a few people got SUB 2s, then Paradigm had a supplier problem for one of the parts in those massive plate amps, which has delayed shipments.

My guess is that said supplier went belly-up or had a colossal production delay, and there isn't another supplier that makes a compatible part.

Well we just got a sub 1 in today. To bad it is going to the customers house in a few minutes. I wish we had one on display to play with. I can't wait to see how it stacks up against the sub 25 we have here.

And it arrived it good condition. I will start the tests in the next couple of days. I have an Anthem D2v and I will run the ARC sweeps.

Netroamer, glad to finally see someone else with a Sub 1 (Also from Deluxe A/V no less!)

Once you get it set up, please share your room response curve from ARC/PBK. Mine is a few pages back, and I got +/- 1.25 dB from 20-80 Hz after a couple hours of tweaking.

Noah, you should bring a Sub 25 over to Netroamer's house and compare it to the Sub 1!

I am assuming you are using ARC. If so 120 is probably the cutoff and not the xover which is probably 60. I have studio 100s and a servo 15 v2 and my cutoff is 120 with a xover of 60 and I am using ARC.
John

I too have a D2v and am very interested in how it will sound. PBK it first if you are getting the kit and then ARC. This is how Nick said they did it in the Paradigm theatre.
John

netroamer,

for reference, what other subs have you heard?

I'm not much of a subwoofer junkie. I have been using the same M&K 5000, now for sale, for about nine years. My goal was to reduce the footprint of the subwoofer and move it to a more frontal position under a drop-down screen where the M&K was to tall to use. I'll list the whole amp/speaker chain with my ARC results.

I hooked up the Sub-1 and did a quick level setup. I liked what I heard. But I was somewhat puzzled in that I heard a more articulate lower mid-range, I'm guessing between 300-800hz that is handled by my M-L Prodigy's and M-L Stage that the Sub-1 is now positioned in line with.

As for using the PBK, I was told, months ago, by Piero at Anthem that ARC will do the same job and there was no need to run PBK first. I'll ask again.

I may have been thinking of a 2 sub setup. Incidentally, Nick mentioned that the sub 1 and 2 in their listening tests reduced dramatically the need for two subs due to the multiple drivers. The LFE is well distributed around the room, not as much a problem with diff seating positions. The price could then be justified on those grounds
John

Isn't this statement a bit odd in that, if one is doing themselves, as opposed to the people who do it professionally in R&D they are in fact self professed pros and not full time, with the background and many years of experience of those at Paradigm's facility or any other speaker co. I don't love corporations but many do great work and produce excellent products and they all don't lie about specs.
John

I love my Sub 1, but that is a pretty dubious claim. Any consumer subwoofer is basically a monopole source, regardless of how many drivers it has. This is because the spacing between multiple drivers is tiny relative to the acoustic wavelengths involved (~15-50 ft).

A subwoofer is going to excite room modes differently depending on where it is placed in the room. It is this modal coupling that creates non-uniform spatial and frequency response. Whether the subwoofer has one or six drivers doesn't change the physics responsible for this behavior.

Now, what multiple smaller drivers DOES do is reduce the group delay of the subwoofer. Lower group delay=faster, tighter bass.

I can only tell you what I was told and Nick at Anthem is also quite versed on subwoofer theory so he had no reason to respond with a "dubious" claim given he wasn't trying to sell me one.
John

Well, in an anechoic chamber (or outdoors), I could see some validity to Nick's statement. In such environments, the direct field dominates, so the directivity of the subwoofer starts to matter. The Sub 1/2 would have a more uniform directivity pattern than a single driver sub.

In an actual room, my personal experience with my Sub 1 tells me that it exhibits all the same room response issues as any other sub. I'd love to have a second one, but the one I have has already cracked the drywall in three rooms of my house.

"I'd love to have a second one, but the one I have has already cracked the drywall in three rooms of my house."

You must be kidding
John

Oddly enough, after I set up the Sub-1, my wife looked at the speaker array and said "I think you should get another one for the other side, it would create a better symmetry". I told her that conventional wisdom states that a second subwoofer should be placed in another part of the room, preferably the back. She came back with "It would look better in front and I doubt if it would hurt the sound". How can I argue!!!

you don't....

You take that word and you run with it...run as fast as you can until you get to your dealer and place another Sub1 order before that verbal contract is null and void

I just got a phone call from a Paradigm representative about my order for a SUB2. He said the current delay is caused by the pending product safety certification from the Canadian Standards Association and Underwriters Laboratories. In the worst case they expect to ship the product in mid-June. They have no problem shipping to Europe and have already shipped some SUB 2's there.

Puff...Puff...Puff!! Mission Accomplished!

Did she realize how much the first SUB 1 cost?

Oddly enough, the room the sub is in was not one of the rooms with cracks. The cracks are in an adjacent room on the same floor and two rooms on the floor above. I have double 5/8" drywall w/ Green Glue between layers on the ceiling too!

speaking of your room, show off some pics man

The Paradigm rep just phoned again. He has arranged to loan me a SUB 1 until my SUB 2 is ready. The only condition is that I keep the box and shipping materials for when I send it back.

I forgive all their sins for the delays.

What sub did you have before? What diff do you notice now with the sub 1? I am assuming you had ARC with the previous sub.
John

An M&K MX-5000 set up at a right angle and a few feet in front of the main speaker array next to an equipment cabinet and against a wall.

As I stated earlier...I hooked up the Sub-1 and did a quick level setup. I liked what I heard. A definitely more detailed, tighter, yet powerful bass that I preferred over the boomier MX-5000. But I was somewhat puzzled in that I heard a more articulate lower mid-range, I'm guessing between 300-800hz that is handled by my M-L Prodigy's and M-L Stage that the Sub-1 is now positioned in line with. I sort that out when I run ARC on the new configuration this weekend.

Yes, the MX-5000 was EQ'd with ARC. I only used it for theater and did not include it in the speaker setup for the music run of ARC as I felt the M-L Prodigys powered by a Krell KCT preamp (the KCT is also looped in from the D2v via a unity gain theater input) and output via CAST cables to a Krell FPB-600c were enough for 2-chnl music. I did use it for Multi-Channel SACD playback using the movie configuration. I can't wait the hear the Sub1 in the M-C SACD mode.

Believe it or not...Yes!

Commercial companies frequently make engineering trade offs that are non optimal from a performance standpoint, instead geared towards WAF or marketing. For example, Hoffman's Law dictates that putting many speakers in one small enclosure will reduce efficiency at low frequency. This is likely why the power requirements on the amp are so high. Somewhere on the other extreme would be a design like the Terraform XL, which has measured flat +/-3dB down to ~11z with "only" a 1200W amplifier.

That said, I would be interested to see the Sub1/Sub2 un-EQ'ed frequency response, distortion, and power requirements in an anechoic environment (outdoors).


PBK is really just ARC specifically for the subwoofer, so if you only have one subwoofer, that is a very reasonable statement. For multiple subs, you may want to run PBK first on each sub to independently deal with each sub's modal room excitations, which can differ dramatically. In general, however, I would not recommend running layers of EQ on top of each other, especially when said EQ commits the cardinal sin of overdriving the nulls. (PBK raises nulls, and I assume ARC does as well.) The best solution is to acoustically damped the room, and place the subs properly.

Disclaimer: I have the Sub 12 and found the PBK useful, but too idiot-proof for my liking. I would rather have direct control of the subwoofer's EQ, but unfortunately you have to use PBK's automated results if you want sub EQ. I get better results determining my room response with my own Matlab scripts, since I'm not restricted to 1/3 octave smoothing, and can get 1Hz (or better) resolution. I have some bass traps coming in from GIK, and I may trade in my Sub12 for dual Sub15's, at which point I may forgo EQ altogether.